Silly Jesus:LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

This. I don't understand why employees shouldn't just be forced to live and work at the job. A little room with a hotplate, if you will. Share a shiater down the hall. I believe the president who should have been explored such policies in China.

Employees should have absolutely no voice. In return, said employees get no pay.

Think about it. Every Walmart you've ever been in, from Lickcock Idaho to Bahrain, has the same people. I don't mean they look the same, I mean they *are* the same.The doors you pass through are a gateway to this dimension.

RedVentrue:EVERYBODY PANIC: Testiclaw: TiiiMMMaHHH: The workers are demanding the following from Walmart:

We should be demanding similar requirements for every human on this Earth.

Good for the WM employees for getting together to do this.

You mean, mean guy Testiclaw. We should demand, DEMAND! that everybody on earth be given, not a tolerable wage of perhaps $25,000 as you propose, but a fortune of, say, *puts pinkie to side of lip* ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

Yes this proposal sounds crazy to some, and yes I'm just having fun with you over this, but please explain in your wisdom what makes my evil plan any different from yours, save by degree? And oh yes, also tell us EXACTLY WHO is to 'provide' all of this largess to the nonproductive people of the world.

This I gotta hear.

If everyone worked fo 25k a year, then 25k would be the new starvation wage. Raise wages without raising means and resouces, and it only serves to inflate the dollar.

If only there was a country nearby that had a minimum wage of over $10 an hour, single payer health insurance and a dollar that was about at parity with the USD. Nope, that could never happen the US economy could never match the Canadian one.

hubiestubert:It is sort of sad, that folks don't understand what sacrifices were made, so that they could have the protections that they enjoy today. How many Wobblies got their heads stove in, exactly what price Joe Hill paid, what was endured to create the very conditions that they enjoy today.

In the words of Joe Hill: "Don't mourn, organize."

This fight has been going for over a hundred years, and fear of organized labor has fueled efforts to limit and crush our right to free speech, freedom of association, and freedom to assemble. It strikes against the very fabric of the concept of this nation, and has been a tool of those who fear their workers' freedom, and their power.

You know, I'd love to ask Jimmie Hoffa about that. Have you seen him around anywhere?

I don't think it will ever come to making Union organizers disappear again, like what used to happen. Nowadays they just use lawyers. And Wal-Mart does NOT lose in Court.

I think much popcorn would be enjoyed by all if Wal-Mart were sued by the Church of Scientology.

djkutch:Silly Jesus: LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

This. I don't understand why employees shouldn't just be forced to live and work at the job. A little room with a hotplate, if you will. Share a shiater down the hall. I believe the president who should have been explored such policies in China.

Employees should have absolutely no voice. In return, said employees get no pay.

Share a shiatter? What, is a bucket too good for those worthless plebes? Toilets cost money, dammit!

And a hot plate? What is this - The Waldorf Astoria? Next they'll be expecting food that isn't made from old newspapers and ground up apple cores!

Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California-Berkeley, compared the Waltons' cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Survey of Consumer Finances. (She used the Waltons' wealth from 2010, which was valued at $89.5 billion.)

Allegretto found that in 2007, the wealth held by the six Waltons was equal to that of the bottom 30.5 percent of families in the U.S. In 2010, the Waltons' share equaled the entire bottom 41.5 percent of families.

Walmart can afford raises for everyone.

Doesn't matter. You can cite things like this all day and assholes like this thread's merry band of trolls will still lick the Walton heir's taints. We're Amurricans - no one can be too rich and any amount of employee abuse is perfectly OK because, by golly, they chose the work there.

When I hear shiat like this it pisses me off so much I'm ready to to go heads-on spikes. The billionaires and their white knights right next to them.

Lsherm:Sliding Carp: $5.00 says the party of small government, individual freedom, and free market will find a way to claim the government should force them back to work.

Unemployment is still high enough they can be replaced. Sucks, but true, especially since it doesn't look like this is a nationwide-coordinated effort. If they could get all the workers in all the stores to strike on the same day it would be very effective.

Meh. If all the wal-mart employees in my town walked off the job, the company would have serious problems replacing them. Every big box store, fast food place, grocery store, and small retail store is having to raise wages to attract employees. The unskilled retail labor pool is pretty tight.Lots of temp workers who barely/don't speak English are filling gaps at some places, but would you want to staff a wal-mart in middle America with English-challenged people on black Friday?

The hambeasts fighting over discounted Chinese-made shiat would burn the motherfarker down.

Silly Jesus:djkutch: Silly Jesus: djkutch: Silly Jesus: LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

This. I don't understand why employees shouldn't just be forced to live and work at the job. A little room with a hotplate, if you will. Share a shiater down the hall. I believe the president who should have been explored such policies in China.

Employees should have absolutely no voice. In return, said employees get no pay.

It's a voluntary exchange. They went to Wal-mart and asked for the ability to exchange their labor for the amount of money that Wal-mart was offering. They weren't recruited or forced to work there. If they don't like the terms of their voluntary contract, they are free to leave and Wal-mart should be free to replace them with someone else.

Exactly! Thanks for articulating much better than I attempted. They accepted the job and should have no opinion whatsoever after.

If they want it different, they can quit and can start their own corporation selling products made in China.

They can ask for a raise, and the company can say no. They can ask for a unicorn and the company can say no. Not sure what you're missing here.

Silly Jesus:djkutch: Silly Jesus: LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

This. I don't understand why employees shouldn't just be forced to live and work at the job. A little room with a hotplate, if you will. Share a shiater down the hall. I believe the president who should have been explored such policies in China.

Employees should have absolutely no voice. In return, said employees get no pay.

It's a voluntary exchange. They went to Wal-mart and asked for the ability to exchange their labor for the amount of money that Wal-mart was offering. They weren't recruited or forced to work there. If they don't like the terms of their voluntary contract, they are free to leave and Wal-mart should be free to replace them with someone else.

Exactly! Thanks for articulating much better than I attempted. They accepted the job and should have no opinion whatsoever after.

If they want it different, they can quit and can start their own corporation selling products made in China.

FuryOfFirestorm:Silly Jesus: FuryOfFirestorm: leadmetal: Now as to the walmart employment horror stories, why not leave? Are there no Targets? No Safeways? No Kmarts? No Menards? No Home Depots? If these other places pay more and treat people better, just start applying at them. I am sure they would prefer someone with applicable experience than someone right off the street.

If you're a minority/woman/senior citizen with no college education, your job options are limited.

"But why not get a degree?" With what money? All of their income goes to rent, food, and utilities.

"But why not get a loan?". Yes, banks are tripping over themselves to give loans to people who can barely afford to pay rent.

"Why not get a new job?" When you're working two waitressing jobs just feed your kids, you're not going to quit your job in an unstable job market, are you? Don't you think that if there were better paying jobs available out there, that working mother of 2 wouldn't already be applying for it?

Not irresponsibly having the two kids would be a good start.

Wow. You are such a colossal asshole, you make Donald Trump look like Mr. Rogers.

Even Satan would reject your soul.

Yeah, that's usually how liberals react to the concept of personal responsibility.

ciberido:Silly Jesus: It comes down to life choices. She has three kids, one car, and works at Wal-Mart. Somewhere along the line some very bad decisions were made. These are the consequences. The Walton's didn't force her to make those decisions.

ox45tallboy: Yes, indeed. She chose to marry her first husband who put her in a bad situation. She chose to marry a second husband who got shot up in Iraq, and has had a hell of a time getting on disability. She chose to have a special needs child.

Fark you for blaming the victim.

Seriously, f*ck you.

I don't have anything else to say to you.

You needn't bother. Silly Jesus has passed beyond what I call the Derpchild radius, the point at which Poe's Law collapses under the burden of its own derp. It's no longer possible to determine whether the farker is sincere, trolling, or sarcastic. Nor, ultimately does it matter. No rational argument will ever be able to escape that singularity. It's just mathematically impossible.

Aww, how precious. You've created an alternate reality to avoid the real world.

Silly Jesus: It comes down to life choices. She has three kids, one car, and works at Wal-Mart. Somewhere along the line some very bad decisions were made. These are the consequences. The Walton's didn't force her to make those decisions.

ox45tallboy:Yes, indeed. She chose to marry her first husband who put her in a bad situation. She chose to marry a second husband who got shot up in Iraq, and has had a hell of a time getting on disability. She chose to have a special needs child.

Fark you for blaming the victim.

Seriously, f*ck you.

I don't have anything else to say to you.

You needn't bother. Silly Jesus has passed beyond what I call the Derpchild radius, the point at which Poe's Law collapses under the burden of its own derp. It's no longer possible to determine whether the farker is sincere, trolling, or sarcastic. Nor, ultimately does it matter. No rational argument will ever be able to escape that singularity. It's just mathematically impossible.

No, it wasn't. The first thing I quoted was an article discussing Constitutional rights and guarantees, and how those applied to the labor issues. The article then went on to discuss such things as the Wagner Act.

EVERYBODY PANIC:Testiclaw: TiiiMMMaHHH: The workers are demanding the following from Walmart:

We should be demanding similar requirements for every human on this Earth.

Good for the WM employees for getting together to do this.

You mean, mean guy Testiclaw. We should demand, DEMAND! that everybody on earth be given, not a tolerable wage of perhaps $25,000 as you propose, but a fortune of, say, *puts pinkie to side of lip* ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

Yes this proposal sounds crazy to some, and yes I'm just having fun with you over this, but please explain in your wisdom what makes my evil plan any different from yours, save by degree? And oh yes, also tell us EXACTLY WHO is to 'provide' all of this largess to the nonproductive people of the world.

This I gotta hear.

If everyone worked fo 25k a year, then 25k would be the new starvation wage. Raise wages without raising means and resouces, and it only serves to inflate the dollar.

Sergeant Grumbles:Fade2black: Is there a reason why Wal-Mart should pay a wage to employees that would count as gainfully employed? You haven't explained the repercussions when wages go up dollars an hour, to the product they sell or the services they give. Wages go up, cost goes up. Nothing of value was gained except you might feel better about yourself when you go home after your shift.

Raising the pay of Wal-Mart's U.S. workers to a minimum of $12 an hour would lift many out of poverty, reduce their reliance on public assistance, and cost the average consumer, at most, $12.49 a year.

Is there some reason working for Wal-Mart need not be gainful employment besides your opinion of what counts as work?

Why not pay them all $50,000 a year. That would only cost everyone $20 a year. Why not pay them all $100,000 a year? That would cost everyone less than $100 a year. How do you choose the appropriate pay?

Personaly I think this would be awesome. Thousands of crazed shoppers rampaging through walmart shoving anything they can find into their carts, with only a couple of managers to handle the madness in the entire store. 1...maybe 2 checkout lines open, people getting stabbed, run over and beaten before everyone says 'fark it' and just starts a loot-fest. Yeah, I'd show up to watch that.

As long as they don't pull this shiat at best buy. I would like a new TV. Or hell, they can pull this at Best Buy as well, I'd probably get a free TV that way.

divx88:Unskilled workers doing unskilled things annoyed that they get paid what they're worth.

Loyalty is worth it's own weight in gold. A living wage, benefits and other things which enable someone to work there long term could raise the quality of employees there, but they don't want that. Don't like it, don't work there.

Learn a trade that's in demand.

They would love to be loyal, if their employer would just give them a reason.

Oh, and as far as the 'learn a trade/if they don't like it, don't work there' mantra, you don't seem to realize that these magical jobs aren't infinite in number. Not only that, but working in someplace like WalMart isn't exactly the way to get the money to afford school, and a lot of these people are working 2-3 jobs and also don't have the time to go to school as well as put food on the table. Besides, SOMEONE has to be there to sell you those shiatty flip flops you like so much.

Sure, it helps YOU sleep at night because you can rationalize it away, but it's just a cop out, nothing more. It does nothing to actually solve the problem. In fact, it makes it worse because people ignore it.

"Put Its Promises in WritingAgree to a global labor agreement guaranteeing the fundamental human right of freedom of association for all of its associates and instruct their suppliers to do the same, and recognize and negotiate with OUR Walmart."

I sound fat:If wal mart goes union, pays high wages, and raises prices, the financial markets will fund a brand new wal mart clone and have it up and running in months. Interestingly, these same people will be working there, because even if they win, they will be fired.

While that post is definitely dumb, and would be at the top of many other threads' lists of dumb posts, that won't cut it here. You have to do better than that if you want to win dumbest post of THIS thread. Because between Great Janitor and Silly Jesus, there have been some major turds dropped up in here.

People_are_Idiots:Whoa, a bigger idiot! Did I say FEDERAL law? I said CONSTITUTION. Constitution does not necessarily mean Federal. This is like saying Texas Law is valid in Arizona... next time, READ!

-10/10

Next time, figure out what the hell you are talking about. I called Great Janitor out for claiming that he had the right to fire anyone attempting to organize a Union. I pointed out an article discussing Constitutional Theory, as well as the Wagner Act. You butted in and called me "ignorant" and said I had no idea what I was talking about, and demanded a better reference. I linked straight to the Wagner Act, and now you're spouting off some nonsense about the Constitution and how Federal law Texas valid in Arizona... I have no idea what you think you are talking about, but I gave you the FEDERAL law which trumps any and all State laws. If that's not good enough for you, then fark off.

Nerdhurter:Watching "progressives" swallow their puke trying to defend Wal Mart workers is worth the price of admission. "Do you know someone who'll do that job?" "It will take time for Wal Mart to train another mouth breather to do the job." Disdain and self congratulatory pity forming a superstorm of liberal smugness, guess what pukes this is the real little man you purport to defend. Not alot of locally sourced craft beers being sipped amongst the dudes who stock shelves at 2 in the morning.

WhyteRaven74:Fade2black: Not everybody needs an economics class to understand that if you jump up every single "no training required" job to "gainfully employed" that it would collapse the economy.

one of the things Richard Nixon wanted to introduce was a living wage law. Let that sink in for a while.

It's amazing how "liberal" people like Reagan and Nixon look when compared to today's Republican Party platform. Or at least what it was days before the election. I honestly have no idea what the Republican Party thinks it stands for now that Obama's been reëlected.

Great Janitor:Oh, we're going to try the excuse of "There are no other jobs out there?" Bullshait. If that were true then websites like Monster would be completely void of jobs. There would be no jobs posted on craigslist. There are jobs out there, you just have to look for them. And if you live in some strange place where there are no jobs, work for yourself. Find something that people aren't willing to and charge them for it. Hell, you can probably become self employed charging lazy ass people money to pick up their dog's shiat and make more money than Walmart pays their own people.

So you're saying:

"If she doesn't like it, she should find a better job!"

Because that's what you sound like. And remember what Steve Buscemi was doing in Tarantino's next movie.

rtaylor92:Are you sitting down for this because I don't want you to hurt yourself....German and Japanese autoworkers are both unionized. U.S. Auto struggling the last few decades was simply because they designed and tried to sell awful awful cars.

Germany and Japan also have socialized medicine, so the cost of employee health care (current and future) is not included in the price of their cars.

Silly Jesus:Maybe it will shape up like the Hostess strike. Hostess told the workers that if they went on strike they would shutter the factories and fire them all. They went on strike...Hostess closed the factories...the workers went all WHARGARBLLL "yall took are jerbs!" It was beeeautiful.

I'm calling bullshiat on that. Shiatty corporate practices by Walmart aren't the only reasons I prefer Target. Both the employees and the clientele at WalMart are as terrifying as the People of Walmart site tells us. Unless those are the ONLY hot chicks at ALL of the WalMarts, and they added some ex-employees as well as a few customers, that explanation I'll buy...

Gawdzila:Or maybe they know it won't work and just want to punch WalMart in the wallet.I think it might work better than you think. The sort of mouth-breathers that apply to WalMart will probably take longer than 2 weeks to figure out how to work a cash register. Even if they got a bunch of job applicants, considering the relatively short time frame the stores would not be running smoothly (even compared to normal) and would cost the store quite a bit of revenue.

Ship them in from other states. It might cost a bit but the sales will go on. No training required.

Sliding Carp:$5.00 says the party of small government, individual freedom, and free market will find a way to claim the government should force them back to work.

Stop being mean to Libertarians. They will do no such thing. Oh, wait, did you mean Republicans? That description does not fit that party very much. When pressed, most Republicans back away from their slogans. I have fun with this sometimes.

You wouldn't hear "no" very often. You'd hear "Try it and see." And you'd end up with far more than you set out to. When you work at Walmart, you join incredible professionals doing the never-before-seen to save people money so they can live better. It's all part of our unique career experience, and of how - across industries and the globe - we're Making Better Possible.

Great Janitor:Sliding Carp: $5.00 says the party of small government, individual freedom, and free market will find a way to claim the government should force them back to work.

Why should they? Just fire the ones who walk out and replace them. Odds are they won't be missed.

Or, here's how I look at it, if I were working at Walmart, I would, first of all, know that like it or not, working Black Friday was going to happen. All things considered, I'd rather work at the start of the sale on Thanksgiving than on Friday because at least on Thursday I'd get holiday pay. Secondly, knowing the kind of customers and the numbers of customers that show on Black Friday, I'd be a bit pissed that my coworkers decided to skip out on a major day at work instead of doing the job that they were hired to do.

In short, Walmart workers, you knew what you were getting into when you filled out the job application. If you don't like the situation of having to work Black Friday, quit your job and find a different one.

It's a toss-up. It's hard for me to say, because I don't know exactly the pitch Walmart gives the poor & desperate who fill out applications for their crappy jobs; otoh, I've been in a position where I would have taken ANYTHING just to have an income (almost--never big-box retail). So on the one hand, you can say yes, they knew what they were getting into: A crappy job with crappy pay and almost zero benefits where they could fire you for no reason and unionizing was tantamount to murder or worse.

However, in today's economy, you can't just "quit and find a different job" because there aren't really any other jobs out there, and employers know it. They can screw employees with impunity, knowing their workers have zero recourse and zero options. Low pay? No benefits? Bad hours? "Go find another job--Oh, wait, YOU CAN'T! HAHAHAHAHA!" The employer goes off to twirl his mustache and tie another blonde to the train tracks, and the employee can only seethe in fury and hope he still has 38 hours a week next week.

So I do understand the employees' frustration here, and their only hope of getting any attention is to try to strike on the busiest day of the year and hope somebody--anybody--notices. It probably won't help. There are plenty of other desperate people who need crappy jobs at low pay and no benefits who will fill the empty spaces. But what other options do they have?

Silly Jesus:MFAWG: Silly Jesus: Maybe it will shape up like the Hostess strike. Hostess told the workers that if they went on strike they would shutter the factories and fire them all. They went on strike...Hostess closed the factories...the workers went all WHARGARBLLL "yall took are jerbs!" It was beeeautiful.

How do you assholes want it? You biatch and moan about a lot of these same people being on welfare, then you want to put them down for standing up for themselves and demanding livable wages. Oooh, please someone save the multi-billion dollar corporation! They shouldn't have to pay their employees anymore because they are worthless pieces of shiat that knew what they were getting into. Give me a farking break.

Think about it. Every Walmart you've ever been in, from Lickcock Idaho to Bahrain, has the same people. I don't mean they look the same, I mean they *are* the same.The doors you pass through are a gateway to this dimension.

Think about it. You know I'm right.

Maybe it's where dangerous criminals get TimeLooped, much like how Aornis Hades was left to spend the same eight minutes over and over in line at a T.J. Maxx.

Maybe it will shape up like the Hostess strike. Hostess told the workers that if they went on strike they would shutter the factories and fire them all. They went on strike...Hostess closed the factories...the workers went all WHARGARBLLL "yall took are jerbs!" It was beeeautiful.

As a Wal-Mart employee through my college years, I say, PLEASE DO IT. The hilarity would be epic, and it would be nice to see these workers grow a spine. Many of the ones in the store I worked at literally feared their managers, who were complete idiots blessed only with an ability to fly into a rage over no reason.

Nick Nostril:timujin: Silly Jesus: There's an endless supply of dimwits who need some extra walking around money for cigarettes and lottery tickets. I don't think that Wal-mart is at much risk of running out of a "qualified" applicant pool.

That's where you and I disagree, I think the supply is limited. Would you work there? I wouldn't. Have you ever met any dimwits that you wouldn't trust to know which end of a mop to use? I have. Once you eliminate those people, people who can't communicate, people who have other limiting factors such as a criminal record, you do have a finite available workforce. Now, there are obviously more people who would take the job than are currently employed by the company, but I still believe that those people, once they are employed, will reach the same level off discontent that the current employees have. Eventually you run out of people who are willing to take the shiatty job. Add to that the cost of on-boarding and training new employees and it can be less costly to meet the employees demands, or at least come to some sort of middle ground.

It's kind of like the people who pick vegetables going on strike. Sure, there are other people willing to take their jobs, but not many and once those people realize how difficult the work is and how shiatty the conditions are, they too get fed up and go on strike. Eventually the growers run out of available employees and are forced to make concessions.

At this level of employment, if Wally World runs piss tests, and I'm sure they do, I'm surprised they aren't forced to staff the store with robots due to lack of qualified applicants.

/there's only so many octegenarians left to fill these spots

I would have to be too stoned to move to be able to stand to be in a Wal Mart, much less interact with the shoppers.

djkutch:Silly Jesus: djkutch: Silly Jesus: LULZ. I hope they are all fired. Plenty more people out there who would love their job.

This. I don't understand why employees shouldn't just be forced to live and work at the job. A little room with a hotplate, if you will. Share a shiater down the hall. I believe the president who should have been explored such policies in China.

Employees should have absolutely no voice. In return, said employees get no pay.

It's a voluntary exchange. They went to Wal-mart and asked for the ability to exchange their labor for the amount of money that Wal-mart was offering. They weren't recruited or forced to work there. If they don't like the terms of their voluntary contract, they are free to leave and Wal-mart should be free to replace them with someone else.

Exactly! Thanks for articulating much better than I attempted. They accepted the job and should have no opinion whatsoever after.

If they want it different, they can quit and can start their own corporation selling products made in China.

They can ask for a raise, and the company can say no. They can ask for a unicorn and the company can say no. Not sure what you're missing here.